Orchestral brass and fanfare - analysis of system


The question is - where do the elements of great brass reproduction reside in a system? In the story below, I think performance is limited by either my amp or tweeter. What do you think?

And now my story ...
My system at present:

Electrocompaniet EMC1 CDP with MKII upgrade
Pass Labs X-1 Pre
Krell KAV250a amp
B&W Nautilus 805s
Audioquest interconnect
Discovery speaker cable.

What I hear from individual solo brass instruments:
Lyrical sound with good harmonics and good "Pratt".
Equally good with coronets, flugels, trombones, baritones;
french horns may be a little compressed - but then that is their natural sound. Works equally well on loud and soft passages.

What I hear from symphonic brass in fanfare is different:
[e.g. Copland - new world symphony ]The "Pratt" is still there, mids and lows are good, however the highs become compressed at LOUD volumes. On low volume passages the system relaxes into my comfort zone again.

My own thoughts:

1. Is this the sound of clipping?
2. Is this the metal tweeter on the 805s?
3. Is this amp unable to open up the speakers enough?
(Krell generally has plenty of headroom - even the KAVs)
4. Have I hit the wall with what my speakers can do?
judit

Showing 3 responses by marakanetz

Not only, Patrick!
The symphonical brass recordings do stress a lot the speaker drivers with the widest freequency spectrum including unaudiable freequencies(that basically signify the tembre of a particular instrument or group) that are present in this case on significant levels that are probably beyond the speaker curve. To reproduce symphonical brass I believe there should be the power-hungry full-range speakers and a huge power to drive them. If these conditions are not met there will be a huge amout of destructive mutual influence between different instruments and the ONLY ONLY way to cut this problem to the roots is to go to the concert hall and listen to it live.
Thus, the only test for the speaker/amp I don't do is the symphonical brass mentioned here even despite my adoring of Symphony 5 and 9 of Beethoven. Not for my budget or even not for my twice-budget either.
In case with CD or even HDCD(forbid my analogue habbit skeptics) the highs are extreamly limited and cut and so might and probably do inflict such distortions that are unaudiable on higher volume levels but still I bet present.
I must say that the author of this forum should contact Sean(the member of the 'gon) that has a pretty vast knowlege how it's done in reality and how expencive it could be. Also talk to Rives that might define if there is some room issues in that case.
Judit,
Subwoofer is not enough. There probably has to be super-tweeter as well.
Judit, it's right-on Vandys3a with Pass X-350 will certainly handle this situation much better. Vandys3a have one of the best top-end extention among the speakers of its class and higher.